Art of Suppression: Confronting the Nazi Past in Histories of the Visual and Performing Arts

Pamela M. Potter

Abstract

One thinks of the arts in Nazi Germany as struggling in an oppressive system, yet evidence has repeatedly shown that conditions were far more favorable than we assume. Potter conducts a historiography of Nazi arts, examining writings from the last seven decades to demonstrate how historical, moral, and intellectual conditions have sustained a distorted characterization of cultural life in the Third Reich. Showing how past research has revealed the decentralized nature of Nazi arts policies, Potter argues that the insulation of academic disciplines allowed outdated presumptions about Nazi micro ... More

One thinks of the arts in Nazi Germany as struggling in an oppressive system, yet evidence has repeatedly shown that conditions were far more favorable than we assume. Potter conducts a historiography of Nazi arts, examining writings from the last seven decades to demonstrate how historical, moral, and intellectual conditions have sustained a distorted characterization of cultural life in the Third Reich. Showing how past research has revealed the decentralized nature of Nazi arts policies, Potter argues that the insulation of academic disciplines allowed outdated presumptions about Nazi micromanagement of the arts to persist. German exile experiences in the 1930s first inspired these notions, and they gained currency during the occupation of Germany (as careers and trends from the Third Reich continued despite implications of the “Zero Hour”) and throughout the Cold War (as direct comparisons of Nazi and Soviet repression gained momentum). The first histories of Nazi arts, which appeared in the late 1940s, reflected these immediate concerns, but over the next decades, arts scholarship failed to benefit from debates that problematized concepts of totalitarianism, intentionalism, and fascism. They also adhered to explicit definitions of modernism that sustained a narrative of Nazi antimodernism comparable to that of Stalin. The end of the Cold War spawned new comparisons between Nazi Germany and East Germany, but recent considerations of popular culture, economics, and global conditions in the 1930s and 1940s can offer a deeper understanding of the similarities and differences between culture in Nazi Germany and the rest of the industrial world.